Education at the heart of Lenasia’s resilience
DR ISMAIL VADI
LENASIA has always prided itself on the quality of its local education system. Like their counterparts in the erstwhile Natal, parents here placed a high value on the education of their children. They spared little in financing their children’s education, often digging deep into their pockets at the expense of meeting other needs. For them education was an important lever to overcome racial inequality and poverty. It is the key to social advancement and a better quality of life.
Lenasia has 21 public schools, two special needs schools and six private schools. The quality of public education remains above the national average with a good many pupils receiving outstanding academic achievements year-on-year.
Lenasia’s public schools are non-racial with most having a large complement of African learners, many of whom are transported by minibus taxis from neighbouring townships and informal settlements. However, education history in this community did not always reflect the desegregated nature of schooling.
When the National Party (NP) came to power in 1948 promoting apartheid, it restructured education to create a racialised system based on the ideology of Christian National Education. It enacted the Indians Education Act (1965), which saw the transfer of the few “Indian” schools under the erstwhile Transvaal Education Department to the newly established Department of Indian Affairs (DIA). In passing the law the NP accepted for the first time the principle of national government responsibility for the education of Indian children.
After crushing black political opposition under the banner of the congress movement in 1960, political co-option and concession - and through it control of Indians - became the objective of NP strategy. A national administration in charge of Indian education was created and a gradual process of “Indianisation” of the educational bureaucracy was set into motion.
Due to the gross neglect by the authorities of the provision of schools for Indians in earlier years, there was a massive shortage of classrooms. The DIA inherited a backlog of over 1 000 classes. By 1969, there were 275 166 Indian pupils registered in schools nationally, with 23% being in high school. To meet the growing educational crisis the government introduced “platoon schools” with lessons being offered in the mornings and afternoons to different sets of learners.
From the 1970s the apartheid government gradually rolled out a school building programme for Indians. Most of the schools in Lenasia were built in this period. At the same time, it employed more teachers. A good number of teachers appointed in Lenasia came from Natal with many making it their home in later years.
The first school in the area - Lenasia High School or “Lenz High” - opened its doors on February 1, 1955, with Mr AJ Francis as principal. This was not without opposition from the community, who at the time were residents of Vrededorp, Fordsburg, Kliptown, Ophirton and Sophiatown.
In December 1954, the apartheid government sent out a notice to learners at Booysens Indian High School informing them the school was to shut down and all learners were to be enrolled at Lenz High School that was built with asbestos. Evidently, this measure was introduced to force Indians to move to the new “group area” called Lenasia.
The Transvaal Indian Congress vigorously opposed this move and called on parents not to enrol their children at Lenz High. In turn they facilitated the establishment of the Central Indian High School or “Congress School”. The Congress School used the premises of the Bharat Sharda Mandir and the Newtown Islamic Institute in Fordsburg to accommodate the five hundred stranded students. The Congress School operated successfully for eight years until the beginning of 1963, when it closed its doors. By this time Lenz High had a full intake of students.
Lenasia Primary No.1, known today as Alpha Primary School, was established in 1957 with Mr WA “Billy” Moonsamy as principal.
In 1959, the Lenasia Group 2 School was opened as a comprehensive school, which in 1964 was renamed Nirvana High with Mr Narayanswamy Rathinasamy as principal; a post he held for over thirty years. Model and Greyville Primary Schools were established in 1965 with Mr G Naidoo and Mr AJ Williams as the first principals respectively.
Local opposition to apartheid education took different forms. It varied from individual acts of resistance against racism, discrimination, inequality and authoritarianism by teachers to spontaneous class boycotts by pupils. For example, in April 1975 two Lenasia teachers, Sadecque Variava and Sulayman Ismail, were part of the cohort of BPC-SASO leaders who were charged under the Terrorism Act for organising the pro-Frelimo Rally in Durban. Both were held in detention for nine months before lawyers moved for the withdrawal of charges against them.
In 1977, nine student teachers were expelled from the Transvaal College of Education for participating in a meeting at “The Barn” in Lenasia called to protest the death in detention of Steve Biko and the banning of leading black newspapers and organisations linked to the Black Consciousness Movement. They were Hassen Lorgat, Unjini Poonen, Suliman Dinath, Jessie Naidoo, Siva Naidoo, Haroon Mahomed, Dan Moohanlal, Rathi Mothilal and Vijen Chetty.
Three years later the education struggle in Lenasia burst into open defiance of apartheid education as over three thousand school pupils boycotted classes for almost three months. They demanded free and equal education; better educational resources and facilities; the scrapping of the prefect system; the recognition of SRCs; the abolition of corporal punishment, and the release of local pupils and teachers, who were detained by apartheid security police.
Those detained included two teachers, Sulayman Ismail (MH Joosub Technical High School) and Yusuf Eshak (Trinity High School). Student leaders that were detained were Firdoze Bulbulia, Yusuf Jada, Zunaid Mohammed and Rajesh Cheebur (Trinity High); Haroon Krull, Kenny Padayachie, Sharon Pillay, Ashwin Moyenie, Nashir Omar and Fuad Abrahams (MH Joosub Technical Secondary); Jitendra Hargovan (Lenasia High School) and Kenneth Sebestian (Nirvana High). Also detained were Wits University lecturer, Ismail Momoniat, community activist Mohammed Valli Moosa and Dr Yosuf “Joe” Variava from the Lenasia Parents’ Action Committee.
The student protests led to the formation of the Lenasia Youth League (LYL) and the Lenasia Students’ Congress (LESCO), which played important roles in conscientising the 1980s’ generation. Billy Morgan, the doyen of education in Lenasia, was instrumental in establishing the Progressive Teachers’ League, which mobilised teachers in support of teacher unionism and the Lenasia branch of the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union.
In November 1988, several scholars were detained under the state of emergency. LESCO had organised a class boycott in the run-up to the all-White National Assembly elections, prompting the security police to detain eight student leaders, namely, Kuben Naidoo, Ismail Akhalwaya, Nasen Lingham, Muhammad “Bey” Saloojee, Bharat Trikam, Mohamed “Chula” Saloojee, Ashni Anil and Zaheda Mohamed.
Kuben was held in detention for twenty-two days, ten of those in solitary confinement, where he wrote his first matriculation examination paper at Diepkloof Prison.
The 1980s was a momentous period in Lenasia’s educational history. It witnessed an upsurge of popular educational struggles with the focus on the rejection of the Tricameral parliamentary system.
In stark contrast the more recent years of schooling in Lenasia under the Gauteng Department of Education reflect a sedate period with the emphasis being on improving the quality of public education.
Dr Ismail Vadi is a former ANC MP and MEC for Roads and Transport in Gauteng. Interested persons can contact him on 082 772 3119.
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.
* Part three will follow on March 19.